


Fabled

by DragonflyxParodies



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Genre: But they ARE modeled after them, Curses, Debts, Fae logic there, Gen, Hylia gets shit on, Link's Got Three Brothers, M/M, Story within a Story, The kind your children's children's children will still owe, They are not the four swords Links, This has been a wip since at least 2014 y'all, Vaati comes to collect, as per usual, fairytale, i don't even fucking know why, it's got a happy ending i swear, tbh what else do you expect from me at this point, this is me being productive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24134056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyxParodies/pseuds/DragonflyxParodies
Summary: This is a story of the God of Winds; of a family burdened with their forefathers' sins and a debt owed. This is a story of how that family paid its dues to the God of Winds - and how ancient wrongs were righted.One by one, the blacksmith sent his sons out to seek their fortunes. One by one, they met the God of Winds. And one by one, the blacksmith lost them.
Relationships: Link & Link's Father (Legend of Zelda), Link & Vaati
Kudos: 14





	Fabled

_(They say…)_

_Once upon a time there was a man, gifted with a courage far greater than any before him. When darkness choked the land, he alone fought back—and with the aid of a blade whose power rivaled even that of Evil’s Bane, he vanquished that darkness, bringing light to the land once again._

X-x-x-X

_(There once…)_

_They say there was a man, now lost to the dusty tomes of ages past, who dared wrong the God of Winds. He brought the great House of Gales crashing down to the surface of Hyrule, and defiled the halls of the Palace of Winds. And when the God of Winds pled for peace, he struck down his priests with a blade of white metal._

_And so they say the God of Winds cursed the man’s descendants, and swore to forever hunt them—until the wrongs the man had committed were righted._

X-x-x-X

_(A long time ago…)_

_There once lived a blacksmith of legendary skill in the ancient village of Kakariko, one rumored to be so blessed by the Goddesses that the Royal Family themselves sought out his work and his work alone. But while he had earned his place and kept it as such, his sons had not yet earned theirs. And so the great blacksmith sent his eldest son out, to seek his fortunes._

_The eldest son, proud and arrogant, declared he would travel to Death Mountain itself and return so laden with Eldin ore that even a Goron could not carry the load. He promised that of the metal he would forge the greatest blade known to Hyrule, that he would surpass even his father’s skill._

_And on his first day traveling, the eldest son met the God of Winds._

X-x-x-X

His horse’s breathing was ragged, exhausted, but while dusk was teasing the edges of the sky there was still plenty of time before dark, and rest could wait until then. He drove the animal harder, faster.

Hyrule Field was a massive expanse of rolling hills and the occasional farm—despite its small size and the fertility of the Field, few would dare build on it. Monsters were known to inhabit the Field so densely that wandering there after sunset was synonymous with suicide, both in Hyrule’s capital and the small outlying villages.

He had been riding for a day, going on two now. Death Mountain had been growing ever-closer in the distance, and now it positively _towered_ over him.

A smile twitched across his lips.

Sometime tomorrow—by noon, if the beast he rode was worth the coin he’d spent on it—he would be ascending the mountain itself. It wouldn’t be hard to get a Goron to tell him where the ore deposits were – the beasts were rather slow even on their best days, he thought. And even if they _weren’t_ forthcoming with their information, he had taken one of his father’s maps of the mountain, inked with excruciating detail every ore vein the smith had known of, which he preferred to work with, and which he avoided.

Death Mountain’s peak held the highest quality ore veins. He would have the Gorons take him there, extract it for him there. Even if the sword he had promised his father did not turn out, the ore was so valuable on its own he would sell the scraps for a fortune.

The blacksmith’s eldest son lifted his chin and kicked the flanks of his beast once more, yanking on the reigns to point the creature towards a growing light – a pitiful fire, but a fire nonetheless. A purple-cloaked figure sat beside it, face obscured by a hood. If the company proved beneath him, he would move on.

There were always other travelers who would know enough to be grateful for his presence, after all.

X-x-x-X

_The God of Winds asked the boy for aide, for company until their paths parted ways again._

_But the boy was greedy, and refused the God that which he was not rewarded for._

_And he was cursed, that all he sought would forever be denied to him, swept away on the fierce currents of vengeful wind._

X-x-x-X

Those _fucking_ Gorons had had the nerve to _laugh_ at him, as if he was some stupid fucking _peasant_ and beneath _them._ They had tried to dissuade him and order him to turn his back on his task, patronized him and brushed him off like he was a _child,_ and then pointed him in the wrong direction!

He growled into his father’s map, clenched tight between his aching teeth, and grabbed another rocky protrusion. The wind, howling and battering at him, snatched the noise away before it reached his own ears, and that flamed his wrath even further.

He’d prepared for Death Mountain’s punishing heat, not the screaming chill of these unholy gales – and if it hadn’t been for the years spent working his father’s forge, he would have been entirely unprepared for the sheer cliffs was forced to climb. No thanks to those fucking oversized _pebbles_ back in the city – if he hadn’t realized they’d sent him down the wrong path…

His whole journey has been – disappointing. Filled with the kind of people best left scraped off the bottom of his shoe, from that pathetic old man the first night to every goddamn lump of slag on Death Mountain proper. Fools, the lot of them. _He’ll_ show them. Father will _have_ to will him everything, after he returns.

He’s nearly to the peak of Death Mountain itself, and he growls again – this one vicious, pleased – as he swings himself further up the cliffside. He can see the bright glint of an ore vein up there, past the next ledge a foot or two above his head. He braces against a particularly hard gust of wind, and then launches himself up the cliffside.

Four things happen in rapid succession.

His hand closes over the lip of the cliff.

There is an almighty, ear-splitting _crack_.

The rockface shudders and _shifts_.

And a surge of wind slams into him, so hard it knocks his father’s map from his teeth and his breath from his lungs and flings his body out away from the mountainside.

He’s falling before he can comprehend what just happened, weightless and too shocked to scream.

The sky above him disappears beneath the bulk of a falling mountain.

X-x-x-X

_And so the blacksmith lost his first son._

**Author's Note:**

> I started working on this....literal years ago. Like. This was not supposed to be a huge project anyway. But! It is one that's stuck with me since, and I always wanted to finish it. It's definitely one of my more favorite projects. Also, Vaati doesn't get enough love.
> 
> I am not tagging the Four Links as characters mostly because Vio is the only one with a passable name and I point blank refuse to only name one or two of these dumbasses. Also fables work better without names. Or, a lot of names. So like I said, you can very easily read that into here because that was what it was intended as, and definitely feel free to do so.


End file.
